A reactor is an open or enclosed system with a finite volume that allows for reactions to occur inside the volume for a specific purpose. One such purpose is wastewater treatment. In current systems, wastewater treatment is often conducted in unit operations in multiple individual reactors, typically arranged in series. The reactors may have different volumes and, therefore, different hydraulic retention times (HRTs). This allows different conditions to be achieved within each reactor to facilitate optimization of the performance of the overall system.
While current systems are generally effective, they have several drawbacks. For example, the cost of fabricating each reactor can be high and the total footprint of the system can be large. In addition, it can be challenging to coordinate flow between the reactors. Furthermore, the energy required to actively pump water from reactor to reactor can be high. It would be desirable to have a reactor system that avoids some or all of these drawbacks.